Report ... for the year 1842 / By Thomas S. Kirkbride.

  • Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane
Date:
[1843]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report ... for the year 1842 / By Thomas S. Kirkbride. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    47/54 (page 45)
    steward and matron, in the different sections of the house—I believe we have an organization that will go very far towards preventing accidents of every kind, and which will secure to all the patients, kind treatment and faithful attendance. Such a system of treatment, and such an organization, while producing infinitely more good and lessening greatly the ills of humanity, must necessarily cost more than one,—where troublesome patients are permanently shut up in strong rooms or strapped to “ tranquilizing” chairs—or if allowed to stir out, are to be seen promenad¬ ing confined yards, in muffs or straight-jackets, and where the tenant of the solitary room sees only a rough and ignorant keeper, who carries his meals, but does little else to promote his comfort or his health. The day has nearly past, I trust, in which a civilized people will per¬ mit such a course to be pursued towards any portion of its unfortunate population, and surely the benevolence of a Christian community will never allow the means to be wanting, for carrying out a milder system in full efficiency. Patients received on the Charity of the Hos¬ pital. I cannot conclude this report, without calling the attention of the Board, to the great good effected by the free list, and the amount of suffering annually re¬ lieved by it. The regulation adopted some years since, of admit¬ ting patients on this list, only for a limited period, and directing their discharge, if, after adequate trial, there was no prospect of a recovery, has extended widely the benefits of the charity;—it has made it curative in its operation;—a large number now participating in its benefits, where formerly it only afforded an asylum for a single incurable case during a series of years.